Japan’s electron beam turns forever plastics into raw materials using half the energy


​

The process transforms solid PTFE into gaseous products, specifically oxidized fluorocarbons and perfluoroalkanes.

 

Well, we can't have the jail burn down too.

https://www.kptv.com/2025/07/30/ser...ed-jail-accused-starting-more-fires-portland/
Police: Serial arsonist arrested, then released from jail, starts more fires in Portland

What could have been done to prevent this?
https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_161.225

 

What could have been done to prevent this?

You going vigilante?

 

You going vigilante?

https://apps.mcso.us/PAID/Home/Booking/1626766/1664043
I heard he was released again today.

No, it's perfectly legal to stop arson on your “premises” in this state. Vigilantism is "the extralegal prevention, investigation, or punishment of offenses."

The police are asking for help.

 

No, it's perfectly legal to stop arson on your “premises” in this state. Vigilantism is "the extralegal prevention, investigation, or punishment of offenses."

How can investigation qualify as vigilantism? ... is the seeking of information regarding an offense against oneself illegal?

 

How can investigation qualify as vigilantism? ... is the seeking of information regarding an offense against oneself illegal?

Easy -- remember the definition that was provided: "the extralegal prevention, investigation, or punishment of offenses."

If I'm seeking information regarding a car that's been stolen from me and I investigate it by sneaking into the garage of the person I think might have taken it, that falls under the definition of vigilantism because it is and "extralegal" act. But if I just walk past their garage on a public sidewalk when their garage door is open to see if it's in there, that's not extralegal investigation and so would not be classified as vigilantism.

 

Hundreds of years ago, a sixth grade teacher had us do this exact exercise:

https://youtube.com/shorts/KR25vZJEKeo

Since, I've written hundreds of assembly and test procedures and service and instruction manuals.

The lesson has proved invaluable.

 

​

 

Hundreds of years ago, a sixth grade teacher had us do this exact exercise:

https://youtube.com/shorts/KR25vZJEKeo

Since, I've written hundreds of assembly and test procedures and service and instruction manuals.

The lesson has proved invaluable.

I wonder why they thought that this video was somehow showing something new.

I've wondered who first used the PBJ trope as an example and, more fundamentally, when the generic lesson on the need for clarity of instructions by demonstrating deliberate misinterpretation was first done. I actually wouldn't be surprised to find that the ancient Greeks did something similar, given their penchant for developing remarkably sophisticated geometric constructions.

I don't know why it's always making a PBJ sandwich that is used -- I've seldom seen anything else.

At least the movie Short Circuit used a variation on the theme:

While demos like this certainly make the point about the need to put effort into crafting instructions, they are almost always superficial, generally implying that it is easy or even possible to write instructions in such a way that they are truly unambiguous can simply cannot be misinterpreted. I think this is unfortunate, because some very valuable and useful deeper insights are just sitting there waiting to be had. One is that humans are remarkably adept at correctly interpreting even extremely ambiguous instructions -- we draw upon all of our experiences and the context of a situation and fill in gaps with what, to us, makes the most sense. We do this all the time, without thinking about it, and we are almost always right. A second is that it is virtually impossible to actually craft a set of instructions that is truly clear, precise, and unambiguous. Someone that is looking for a way to deliberately misinterpret them can almost always find several ways to do so. Combining these two, the real lesson is that we need to factor in the intended audience when writing instructions (or whatever we are preparing). What knowledge and skills are we assuming they bring to the table? A cookbook written for a teenager is going to be very different than a cookbook written for an accomplished chef. We also have to consider whether our audience consists of people that want to interpret things the way they were intended. Usually, we assume that they are. When we prepare instructions to assemble a piece of furniture, we assume that the reader's goal is to successfully assemble it. But when preparing a contract or other legal document, we should consider the likelihood that people will be motivated to deliberately misinterpret it in order to slant things in their favor -- happens all the time. This is why legal documents are written in legalese -- the goal is to make it extremely hard to defend unintended interpretations, but the result is that the intended interpretation is almost as hard to divine, thus underscoring the inherent tradeoff involved and the need to shoot for a good balance between precision and comprehensibility.

My preferred version of the PBJ demo is modeled after the Apollo 13 CO2 scrubber scenario:

My version of this is that I take two identical small Lego kits (a few dozen pieces intended to make a plane or something similar) and I put just the parts from one into a baggie and provide the parts and the complete kit, including the box (showing the assembled product) and instructions (which are almost always just pictures) in another. I then make two teams, usually of two or three students, and have them sit back to back at different tables. I give one baggie to each team. The team with the full kit then has to walk the other team through building the kit using only verbal two-way communication. Everyone else gets to stand around and observe both teams, but are not allowed to talk or gesture, merely make observations of what is going right and what is not and why they think things went wrong (which they are all but guaranteed to do).

I have several pairs of kits, so while the next teams can benefit from lessons learned from earlier teams' attempts, they are still building something completely new to them (hopefully).

Once they seem to be getting the hang of things, I then throw a wrench in the works by pointing out that while the Apollo 13 situation was limited to verbal instructions only, they did have the benefit of two-way communication and so they could ask questions and clarify things as they proceeded. But when you read the instructions for something you've bought, like those Lego kits, you only have one-way communication. So now I require that the team trying to build the item do so without talking to the other team at all, and they quickly discover how vital the two-way communication had become, usually without realizing it, and how difficult it was to succeed when it was removed.

 

I don't know why it's always making a PBJ sandwich that is used...

Probably because it's for kids, a good writing exercise for youngsters, and the results are funny (i.e. engaging and memorable).

Edit: Oh! thanks for the obscure language subtitles. Much help!

 

Sometimes the smallest steps in the right direction end up being the biggest moves of your life.

 

This happens to me a lot. I find much easier to understand things as I read them than as verbally explained to me.

Reading Hits Differently to Listening For Your Brain, Science Says

​

Many people assume that listening is easier than reading, but this is not usually the case. Research shows that listening can be harder than reading, especially when the material is complex or unfamiliar.

 

God only knows how many hours of lectures I've sat through. To paraphrase Gary Larson "In college I learned 2 things, something about supply and demand, and that boredom will not kill you". Very few teachers I've had have been good lecturers. One ungodly SOB wrote his "lecture" on the board and expected every student in the room to diligently copy it down as if he was God speaking to Moses on Mt. Siani. We called him busywork Bobby. He could have made us all very happy if he had just passed out a sheet of his notes and let us go about our other studies instead of wasting everyone's time. It only made me very much appreciate the time I spent in other classes with a good lecturer. A good lecturer is able to give relevance to the material being studied. Sometimes just the "facts" will almost bore you to death... The lecturer should assume that after the 8th grade (at the latest) every student is capable of reading the textbook.

 

The lecturer should assume that after the 8th grade (at the latest) every student is capable of reading the textbook.

Unfortunately, that would be a very poor assumption to make. Most students will make, at best, a superficial attempt to actually read the textbook and, increasingly, fewer and fewer of them are able to comprehend what they do read. If you make it clear that they are expected to read the textbook material prior to class and give them simple ten-question online quizzes over that material due the night before class, specifically and expressly for the purpose of providing incentive to actually read the material before it is discussed in class, they will complain in their course evaluations that they are expected to learn the material on their own and are tested on it before it is covered in class.

 

What I ran into teaching high school sciences was lack of math skills. I had an entire small class of chemistry students fail. I always told my chem students on the first day of class that "Chemistry is like learning to swim. We will start in the kiddie pool learning the very basics but if you do not apply yourselves to learning the basics, when we get to the deep end of the pool you will drown". Their lack of math skills may have hindered them from a lack of basic algebraic reasoning but they had no interest in learning the very basics either and by the end of the term were completely lost. I also did not make them rotely learn the periodic chart and names of all the chemicals. I did buy and give each of them a notebook sized periodic chart to use for homework and showed them how to find what they needed and demonstrated on the board how to use that information to do the equations to find the solution to the basic principles. But they couldn't care less and none of them would apply themselves to learning the principles of chemistry. I think I did get them to understand that in science, a number without units is meaningless and might as well be flying pigs without assigning the units. Of all the various years of students that I taught, that was the class from hell.

 

 

https://www.kptv.com/2025/08/01/man...es-north-ne-portland-denied-pretrial-release/

A man facing more than 10 arson charges for fires across north and northeast Portland appeared in court Thursday, where he was denied pre-trial release.
...
Instead, the state’s attorney only talked about the “potential harm” these fires could have caused. That is because the way the bail reform law is written, people who are being charged with arson can only be held in pretrial detention if the fire hurt someone or potentially threatened someone’s life.

The defense attorney argued because no one was injured, this should be treated like any other arson case and Edwards should be released again. But the judge agreed with the state that the number of fires set, and the fact he set a garage on fire while someone was inside, qualify his charges to be elevated to a “violent” felony.

 

https://phys.org/news/2025-07-science.html
Lying increases trust in science, study finds

The study revealed that, while transparency about good news increases trust, transparency about bad news, such as conflicts of interest or failed experiments, decreases it.

Therefore, one possible solution to the paradox, and a way to increase public trust, is to lie (which Hyde points out is unethical and ultimately unsustainable), by for example making sure bad news is hidden and that there is always only good news to report.

Instead, he suggests that a better way forward would be to tackle the root cause of the problem, which he argues is the public overidealising science. People still overwhelmingly believe in the 'storybook image' of a scientist who makes no mistakes, which creates unrealistic expectations.
...
He added, "For example, most people know that global temperatures are rising, but very few people know how we know that. Not enough people know that science 'infers to the best explanation' and doesn't definitively 'prove' anything. Too many people think that scientists should be free from biases or conflicts of interest when, in fact, neither of these are possible. If we want the public to trust science to the extent that it's trustworthy, we need to make sure they understand it first."

Too hard, just tell them what they want to hear.

 

A chance to get lower rent and live next to a homeless shelter, too much winning.

https://katu.com/news/local/new-pearl-district-shelter-brings-concerns-about-rents-decreasing
New Pearl District shelter brings concerns about rents decreasing

 

A chance to get lower rent and live next to a homeless shelter, too much winning.

https://katu.com/news/local/new-pearl-district-shelter-brings-concerns-about-rents-decreasing
New Pearl District shelter brings concerns about rents decreasing

Please keep attracting junkies and the insane to the West. Much better there than here!